Tag: police state

Backpage: The Monumental Free Speech Case the Media Ignored

After a dozen years of legal tussles, seven years in the crosshairs of ambitious prosecutors, and five-and-a-half years fighting a federal case that saw his business forcibly shuttered, his assets seized, and his longtime partner dead by suicide, alt-weekly newspaper impresario Michael Lacey was found guilty Thursday on just one of the 86 criminal charges levied against him in connection with the online advertising platform Backpage. But the government’s fanatical pursuit of Lacey and his four other Backpage co-defendants is far from over. 

Lacey, an award-winning investigative journalist, was found guilty of international concealment money laundering, which could land him in prison for up to 20 years, and not guilty of international promotional money laundering. But after a week of contentious deliberations, the jury could not come to agreement on the other 84 charges, prompting U.S. District Judge Diane Humetewa to declare a second mistrial in this case. That means Lacey could face a third federal trial essentially for the crime of running a classified ads site that knowingly enabled and profited from illegal, if consensual, transactions involving sex.

Thanks to Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act, the speech and conduct of website consumers is considered to be the legal responsibility of the speakers themselves, not the owners of the platform. This has been a thorn in the side of politicians and other would-be censors ever since. In 2013, Kamala Harris and 46 other state attorneys general sent a joint letter to Congress urging a rollback of Section 230; the letter started like this: “Every day, children in the United States are sold for sex. In instance after instance, state and local authorities discover that the vehicles for advertising the victims of the child sex trade to the world are online classified ad services, such as Backpage.com.”

Seven weeks before her election to the U.S. Senate, Harris, along with her Texas counterpart Ken Paxton, brought the first criminal case against Lacey, his partner Jim Larkin, and other executives at Backpage, who were paraded in a Sacramento courtroom cage wearing orange jumpsuits. That case was tossed out by a judge who pointed out: “Congress did not wish to hold liable online publishers for the action of publishing third party speech….It is for Congress, not this court, to revisit.” 

But just three days before leaving the A.G.’s office for the Senate, Harris filed yet another Backpage case, which was yet again thrown out (partially) because of Section 230. Once in Congress, Harris helped push through the Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act, or FOSTA, which does peel back Section 230 to make websites liable for the “facilitation” or “promotion” of prostitution by their users, even though prostitution itself is not a federal crime. 

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Florida’s Bloated Prison System Will Cost Billions To Maintain

Florida’s crumbling prison system and aging prison population will cost the state billions to maintain, according to a newly released report commissioned by the state.

A report presented to Florida state lawmakers on Wednesday by the firm KPMG says that Florida will have to pay somewhere between $6 billion and $12 billion over the next 20 years to keep its troubled Department of Corrections (DOC) afloat.

KPMG presented lawmakers with three different options, from most-expensive to least-expensive, to “modernize,” “manage,” or “mitigate” its prison system. According to the report, the Florida prison population is projected to swell from nearly 89,000 people to at least 107,000 by 2042. As it stands, KPMG found that 25 DOC facilities were in “poor” condition, and 16 were in “critical” condition.

Regardless of which option legislators choose, the price tag includes over $580 million for new air conditioning systems (75 percent of Florida state prisons do not have air conditioning), $2.2 billion for immediate repairs, and $200 million to $700 million a year to increase staffing. All three of the proposals include building at least one new prison and two new prison hospitals.

“The findings in the report confirm what lawmakers in both parties and Department of Corrections leadership have been saying for years, which is that the state prison system is in crisis and unsustainable,” says Greg Newburn, the director of criminal justice at the Niskanen Center, says.

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LEXISNEXIS SOLD POWERFUL SPY TOOLS TO U.S. CUSTOMS AND BORDER PROTECTION

THE POPULAR DATA broker LexisNexis began selling face recognition services and personal location data to U.S. Customs and Border Protection late last year, according to contract documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request.

According to the documents, obtained by the advocacy group Just Futures Law and shared with The Intercept, LexisNexis Risk Solutions began selling surveillance tools to the border enforcement agency in December 2022. The $15.9 million contract includes a broad menu of powerful tools for locating individuals throughout the United States using a vast array of personal data, much of it obtained and used without judicial oversight.

Through LexisNexis, CBP investigators gained a convenient place to centralize, analyze, and search various databases containing enormous volumes of intimate personal information, both public and proprietary.

“This contract is mass surveillance in hyperdrive,” Julie Mao, an attorney and co-founder of Just Futures Law, told The Intercept. “It’s frightening that a rogue agency such as CBP has access to so many powerful technologies at the click of the button. Unfortunately, this is what LexisNexis appears now to be selling to thousands of police forces across the country. It’s now become a one-stop shop for accessing a range of invasive surveillance tools.”

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Wealthy LA father who pulled gun on masked intruders as they tried to break into his luxury home while his baby was inside reveals he has been STRIPPED of his firearm permit ‘because he yelled at cops when they arrived’

A Los Angeles father who pulled a gun on masked intruders when they tried to break into his luxury home has revealed he has been stripped of his firearm permit.

In a video for the National Rifle Association, Vince Ricci said his concealed carry license was ‘revoked’ after he was attacked by two men at his $2million house.

‘After successfully defending my home and my family and my five-month-old child, California has now decided to suspend my Second Amendment [rights],’ Ricci said.

The entrepreneur, who is the CEO of a photo studio, told Fox News the sheriff’s office called him on Thursday telling him it was due to him ‘yelling’ at officers.

He had previously blasted the LAPD for ‘sloppy police work’, including their alleged negligence in picking up casings scattered near his home as evidence.

DailyMail.com has reached out to the LAPD for comment.

On November 4 just after Ricci returned home to his gated LA home, two armed men jumped his fence and tried to force their way into his house.

Footage of the gunfight revealed the moment in which he is approached by one of the masked assailants at about 7.30pm.

In a swift attempt to defend himself, his wife, five-month-old and the nanny inside Ricci reached for his gun and started a shootout with the intruders.

Obtaining a concealed carry permit in California is more difficult than other states with Ricci telling Fox News Digital it took him months to process it.

In California residents over the age of 18 can legally carry firearms on private property and residences without a permit or license.

‘My situation is unique because it happened at my front door, all on camera,’ he said. ‘But this happens time and time again all over the country…

‘People sweep it under the rug because it doesn’t behoove their political agenda. The fact is, evil will always exist.’

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Court Brief Slams DEA’s ‘Indefensible’ Rationale For Firing Agent Over Positive THC Test Attributed To CBD Hemp Product

The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) fired a former agent based on an “unjustifiable, unlawful, and inexplicable” rationale after he tested positive for THC after using CBD products that were marketed as being derived from federally legal hemp, an attorney argued in a new brief in a federal court case challenging the removal.

Anthony Armour—described by DEA itself as an “outstanding” special agent during his 16-year tenure—was terminated in 2019 following a random drug screening that revealed traces of THC metabolites. He admitted to taking CBD for chronic pain as an opioid alternative—and he turned over the products he believed to be federally legal under the 2018 Farm Bill—but DEA upheld his firing even upon appeal.

In a brief submitted to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit this week, the former DEA agent’s attorney, Matt Zorn, challenged a series of arguments from the agency, asserting that it relied on “undeniably flawed evidence” to support its claim that Armour unlawfully used marijuana by consuming a CBD product he believed to be within the federal definition of legal hemp.

“This is all indefensible enough. But [DEA’s response] disturbingly sheds new light on how an outstanding DEA agent landed a draconian punishment for an unintentional act,” the brief says. “Deep in the Response, the government notes that DEA intended to remove Armour regardless of his intent, outstanding service, and remorse. DEA would have removed Armour from federal service even if he were just negligent in purchasing CBD products.“

“DEA could have charged Armour whatever it wanted under its guidelines. Likewise, it can fashion whatever drug policy it desires,” it says. “But DEA put Armour on a pedestal and charged him with use/possession of marijuana and never proved the charge. Instead, it took unjustifiable, unlawful, and inexplicable shortcuts.”

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Britain’s new two-way ‘ultra’ speed cameras are already under attack as vigilante chops one down in Cornwall

The latest in speed camera technology to hit British roads is already under attack as one has been pictured having been chopped down by a vigilante.

A Jenoptik VECTOR-SR unit – dubbed the new ‘ultra’ speed camera – has been photographed with its pole sliced almost in two on New Row in Longdowns, Cornwall, with the incident reportedly taking place overnight.

It is the fourth in a string of recent attacks that have seen speed cameras hacked down across this part of Cornwall.

The incident comes after it was announced earlier this week that Greater Manchester Police has installed over 100 of the devices across the city in its crackdown on speeding and other motoring offences. 

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The ‘Monster’ Isn’t the Drug, It’s the Prohibition

If you remember headlines about angel dust and crack, you know that drug panics are nothing new. From time to time an intoxicating drug is rediscovered or newly synthesized, or old ones are consumed in new ways, leading to public fascination and forecasts of doom. We’ve seen that recently with widespread attention paid to fentanyl and tranq, and a recent article in The New York Times about “super meth” and “polysubstance use.”

The November 13 Times piece headlined “‘A Monster’: Super Meth and Other Drugs Push Crisis Beyond Opioids” consists of a high panic to substance ratio. As Reason‘s Jacob Sullum pointed out, “super meth” is not new, but represents a return to making methamphetamine from phenyl-2-propanone (P2P) the way the Hell’s Angels did in the past before illicit manufacturers started deriving it from pseudoephedrine. Now that allergy medications containing pseudoephedrine are strictly controlled, underground labs have returned to old techniques.

Well, of course. Black market operators always innovate to work around laws and law enforcers.

The rest of the of the article, on the simultaneous consumption of several drugs, is equally unremarkable, though outcomes remain as unfortunate as ever.

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The Intelligence Community’s Latest Novelty, Spy Underwear, Puts Us Closer to the Totalitarian Dystopia Described in Science Fiction Novels

In 1921, just after the Russian Revolution, Yevgeny Zamyatin published a dystopian science fiction novel, We, in which a spacecraft engineer lives in a futuristic city made of glass enabling government authorities to track everything that people do at every moment of the day.

The novel influenced George Orwell and Aldous Huxley who wrote prophetic warnings about state surveillance and totalitarianism in Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949) and Brave New World (1932).

Slowly but surely the Pentagon and U.S. intelligence agencies are helping to transform Zamyatin’s worst nightmare into reality—albeit with a twist. Rather than having to build cities full of glass, they have perfected development of sophisticated computer technologies that allow them to spy on everyone without the people knowing when they are doing it.

In late August, the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA), the research and development arm of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI), launched a $22 million program designed to develop computerized clothing, including spy underwear fitted with cameras, sensors and microphones capable of recording audio, video and geolocation data.

According to the Office of the DNI, the newly developed eTextile technology, ideally could assist personnel and first responders in dangerous, high-stress environments, such as crime scenes and arms control inspections without impeding their ability to swiftly and safely operate.[1]

The new technology, however, brings with it a serious dark side, giving the government the ability to insidiously spy on everyone all the time—without them ever knowing it. Journalist Annie Jacobsen told The Intercept that the intelligence agencies “want to know more about you than you.”

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